Paul Spudis doesn’t think much of NASA’s newest vision statement. Neither do I, but I’m unmoved by his replacement: “To explore the universe with people and machines.”
He’s thinking too much like a scientist. Exploration is a means, not an end. I’d say “To flower the universe with sapient life.”
“He’s thinking too much like a scientist. Exploration is a means, not an end. I’d say “To flower the universe with sapient life.” ”
I’d even go one level down from that:
Make money. From that the flowering with sapient life follows.
“To build a Dyson sphere and drop humankind’s price-per-kilowatt completely through the floor.”
I’m somewhat surprised they didn’t just go all the way and say “to boldly go where no one has gone before”. I’m sure they could get around the ‘technicality’ of paying royalties if they really wanted to (or, at least, I wouldn’t put it past the government to try to pull that kind of stunt at this point)
Hippie.
(Hah.)
(How about “To get out of the damned way”?)
The open up the Solar System for development of settlement by the United State of America. (NASA works for the U.S. government, after all.)
We don’t know that the universe is not already flowering with sapient life. Our objective should be to expand our sapient life.
We don’t know that the universe is not already flowering with sapient life.
Are you implying that other planets don’t have congresses?
I’m more inclined toward, “To eat the universe with fava beans and a nice Chianti.” But that’s just me.
Thanks McGehee for supporting my carnivorous fava beans project. I never thought of galactic colonization as a positive side effect of the research!
“To rocket our seed into every nook and cranny of the sweet n’ sexy universe — Bow chicka bow chicka bow wow.”
Rand has it perfect. Although I might change universe to solar system. By the time we get beyond the Oort cloud I’d hope NASA would be a vanishing memory. Since it is a mission statement, universe makes more sense.
Gregg, make money doesn’t need to be in a mission statement. Get enough Sapient life anywhere and making money is the result.
In order to increase GDP by quite a few orders of magnitude – assuming the US is interested in economic growth.
#ken anthony Says:
“Gregg, make money doesn’t need to be in a mission statement. Get enough Sapient life anywhere and making money is the result.”
Hi Ken,
People don’t go anywhere if there’s no profit to be made. Unless, of course, if you are a government agency.
NASA does lots of things and “exploration” is not a good way to describe them. Aeronautics is just the most prominent example.
How ’bout, “To go back to being our little ol’ sweet, innocent NACA selves”? Or better yet, “To make ourselves irrelevant by 2020.”
Simplicity:
“Exploit Space”
The flowering bit will be a nice side benefit.
It shall be the duty of the advisory committee for aeronautics to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of flight with a view to their practical resolution…
It shall be the duty of NASA to supervise and direct the scientific study of the problems of space with a view to their practical resolution…
As the Southern California region’s premier economic development organization, the LAEDC’s mission is to attract, retain and grow businesses and jobs in the regions of LA County.
As the world’s premier space economic development organisation, NASA’s mission is to attract, retain and grow businesses and jobs in space.
People don’t go anywhere if there’s no profit to be made.
That’s funny, I just came back from Tucson where no profit was involved at all.
Even if there were no profitable import from beyond earth orbit, once enough people are living out there they will have their own economic incentives for whatever they do.
While it would be great to have a business plan that included gobs of profit, to think any at all is required is a absolute, complete and total misunderstanding of economics as well as a limited imagination. Any fool could take us to space if it was the only source of something absolutely required. The only thing known to be that, doesn’t happen for billions of years.
We are going to expand into space, not because it’s profitable. But because other people see profits you and I may not. Once there, they will engage in economic activity. Because the earth is a source of capital, it will be involved as well.
If you don’t see the logic of it, consider an O’Neal colony which is supposed to have two qualities: 1) self sufficient. 2) self replicable.
Or are you saying O’Neal was stupid?
Ken,
The problem is not the economics once space settlements exist and are expanding. Its the XX Billions needed to get the first one to the point of being self-sufficient. That is the business model and technical challenge for space settlements, how to reach that critical mass.
Unfortunately for the last 40 years the O’Neillians have been focused on orbital access, which is the easy part and ignoring the difficult part of creating a settlement that only needs energy and local resource inputs to be self-sufficient in food, water, air, etc. But it should be noted that in the case of O’Neill habitats self-sufficiency was not an issue due to their close proximity to Earth (being limited to orbits within Earth-Moon system like EM L5) so there is an implied assumption that trade with Earth would fill the gap, which is why CATS as been where the O’Neillians have placed their focus.
By contrast Asimov Habitats, because they will be roaming the Solar System, do need nearly complete self-sufficiency in transforming energy and local resources into the necessities for life.
When you have self-sufficiency and the ability to expand using local inputs the entire issue of cost to orbital ceases to be a major one. That is because all you will need to ship into space are human emigrates and some basic biological seed stock. That is why use of in-situ resources is far more important a focus for space settlement that CATS is.
The problem is not the economics once space settlements exist and are expanding.
Which is why making money should not be part of a mission statement. The rest I agree.
Ken,
If you are referring to NASA you are correct. NASA is about science and technology development, not about making money. After all its a government agency.